Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Top 2 Renewable Alternative Energy Sources

Many countries across the globe are beginning to make a serious effort to locate and use the best alternative energy sources. It is everyone's responsibility to try and lessen pollutants that cause greenhouse gasses.
Alternative energy sources include the use of renewable energy which goes a long way to helping to reduce the number of toxins. Toxins will always be present as they are the by-product of energy consumptions but, there are ways to greatly reduce the concentration of these toxins.

The great thing about renewable alternative energy sources is that we find them abundantly in nature and their conversion into energy typically has little negative impact on the environment. None of them are perfect and certainly their use in and of themselves does involve some waste generation. The creation of toxins however, is non-existent.
What a great alternative energy source these are because their use also preserves the natural resources for other people to use again as sources of energy.

Here are the top 2 popular renewable energy sources.Solar Energy
The sun will last billion of more years and our ability to gather its energy into solar cells provides us with an unlimited source of readily available energy. The sun's heat is converted into electricity without the use of burning carbon-based fuel such as oil and coal. Large solar farms have many solar thermal panels that follow the sun. Other energy gathering devices include parabolic mirrors. Both these techniques gather the heat and convert to power that heats air or water. The heating of water is used to produce steam which then provides the heat or drives generators for electricity.

Many buildings in cooler climates have adapted their heating systems to take advantage of window exposures to heat and cool the buildings. At first the windows were fitted with solar shades to help keep the room temperature steady as the sun would instantly overheat a room. Now these solar shades have been adapted to collect the heat and turn it into usable energy throughout the building.
The unfortunate side of solar energy is the limitation to daytime operations and times when it is not raining or excessively cloudy.

Wind Energy
Becoming more popular recently is the tactic to harness wind for energy. This type of power generation goes back to before the 15th century when ships and windmills used the wind to produce energy. The biggest drawback was the inefficiency of converting this type of alternative energy. Like solar power the use of this energy source also was entirely dependent on Mother Nature.
The use of windmills throughout history is well documented and they used wind energy to enable the mechanical machinery to perform labor intensive activities. These activities included pumping of water from wells and crushing grains for food production. Modern windmills have boosted the efficiency of the older model from the addition of a wind turbine. The wind still turns the blades which now create energy through the turbine to produce electricity. It is this electrical generator that now powers the mechanical machinery to perform the tasks.

As with solar energy large scale wind farms have been built in strategic locations to convert wind currents into clean alternative energy. These wind farms concentrate the energy into large generators that distribute the electricity through the national power grids. Smaller scale wind farms in rural areas may use the energy generated from smaller turbines for local use on the farm or small community.

While many proponents claim wind power generation has no pollution by-products and is not harmful, the full understanding of the impact on wildlife from the ultrasonic pulses generated from larger wind farms is not fully known. Wind mills do pose a documented danger to the bird population. It is, however, a renewable alternative energy source of which that we will never run out.